All-Star Break affords St. Louis Cardinals chance for season reset. Will it matter?
If nothing else, Major League Baseball’s All-Star break should provide the beleaguered St. Louis Cardinals the solace of knowing only one member of their pitching staff is at risk for injury.
Given a disappointing first half of the season defined in large part by those injuries, they’ll be happy to have the break.
“I think this group (is) ready to play today and ready to get after it all weekend,” Cardinals manager Mike Shildt said Friday. “The break will come. We’ll take it.”
June’s matchup between the Cardinals and Cubs in Chicago saw two teams grappling at the top of the National League Central, imbibing a festival atmosphere as Wrigley Field fully reopened. Now, less than a month later, the matchup instead represents the latest point in any season that the clubs have opposed each other while each was below .500 since 1999.
The Cardinals, winners of two of three in San Francisco, somehow began the weekend with more momentum, as the spiraling Cubs entered play Friday having lost 12 of 13 and beginning Thursday night to soften up the ground for a pending sell off of some of the franchise’s most well known and beloved stars.
St. Louis entered the weekend with a 2% chance of reaching the postseason, according to Fangraphs. The Cubs were at 5%. What was a party atmosphere less than a month ago now feels decidedly more funereal.
For the Cardinals’ part, there was simply relief the series was three games and not four. Following Carlos Martínez’s torn thumb ligament in Colorado, Shildt admitted the team wouldn’t have had a fourth starter available behind Wade LeBlanc, Kwang Hyun Kim and Adam Wainwright.
It’s hard to cobble together a pitching staff when a superior rotation is on the injured list.
Jack Flaherty and Miles Mikolas aren’t expected to return until August, and Martínez may well have started his last game as a Cardinal as his injury will keep him out for an extended period of time, and he faces pending contract options that are sure to be declined.
If you add Daniel Ponce de Leon’s persistent shoulder weakness to the equation, that group of four would perhaps exceed the performance of the current trio, plus the recently optioned Johan Oviedo.
Oviedo is expected to rejoin the team following the break as the schedule will allow for him to start a game for Memphis and attempt to work through some kinks at a level for which he is currently perhaps best suited. Out of necessity, he’s found himself learning on the job in the big leagues, which is unfair for both player and team but unavoidable given the club’s reluctance to take an early plunge into the free agent market.
Chance for a season reset?
Though they haven’t remained entirely static — LeBlanc, Justin Miller, Brandon Waddell and Luis García have all been added to the active roster in the last month — the Cardinals have indeed chosen to add at the periphery of the roster rather than its heart. That choice has the potential to pay long term dividends, but has also buried the club in a standings hole which sees them battling the Cubs to escape fourth place rather than solidify first.
As early as two weeks ago, some Cardinals players referred to the upcoming break as a chance to reset in a season marked by struggles. That admission, coming with nearly 10% of the season still to play before the break arrived, seemed frank, in that it was an acknowledgment there was only so much to be done on a daily basis without getting a chance to step back from the season’s grind.
“You’ve been going at it hard since February,” Shildt said. “I’m pretty sure everybody in this league is ready for some level of break and a little recharge.
“But this group is ready to go. Good energy today, and ready to compete today and this weekend.”
Cardinals welcome back slugger O’Neill
Tyler O’Neill was back in Friday’s lineup after missing the end of the series in Denver and most of the series in San Francisco, first with the residual effects of a hit by pitch to his left hand and then to a frightening reaction to peanut exposure which required an injection from an EpiPen.
O’Neill was eager to join his teammates on the field even as he described having not yet regained all of his energy from the food allergy incident.
“I just have to play,” he said, as he attempted to continue a career-best season.
He’s been one of the team’s unvarnished highlights and was a contender for a spot on the National League squad. Ultimately, only Nolan Arenado and Alex Reyes will represent the Cardinals. Their teammates will rest, recharge, and look for a ladder north from fourth place.
It will be a long climb, and it remains to be seen whether they’ll get the the help they need from the front office to shorten the trip.
